


Bittersweet

by Heartwriter2607



Category: Archie - Fandom, Barchie - Fandom, Riverdale (TV 2017), betty - Fandom
Genre: #barchie - Freeform, #bestfriendstolovers, #slowburn, F/M, SPOILERS FOR 4x17!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:00:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23561188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heartwriter2607/pseuds/Heartwriter2607
Summary: SPOILERS FOR 4x17 - don't read it, if you don't want to know what will happen in 4x17!Story based on the spoilers that an online article accidently posted.After the previous debacles of Carrie and Heathers, Kevin Keller has decided to revive Riverdale High’s tradition of hosting a variety show! But when Mr. Honey forbids him from performing a musical number from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kevin and our gang rallies against their principal. And admist all the drama, one forbidden showmance begins to blossom…"It feels like Archie’s heart is jumping out of his chest while he realized that he made a lot of mistakes in the last few years… but the biggest one was rejecting Betty in the night she showed him her heart and he threw it away without a second thought. It was stupid to think that she would wait for him… and he never expected that from her. But he never thought that she would find love so soon after that. It may be selfish and dumb and heartless… but a little part of him always thought that one day, they would be together. Someday, when they would be older and wiser. Looking back at the time when Betty was by his side all day, he realizes how much he missed this… how much he missed her."
Relationships: #barchie, Archie Andrews & Betty Cooper, Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Bittersweet

_I knew she wouldn’t show up._

Archie Andrews is sitting on the floor in his old garage, starring at the clock on the wall across the small room. His fingers are tapping on the guitar in his lap, slowly following the lead of the ticking noise in the room, thriving him crazy second by second.

It’s been a few hours since his fight with Veronica and he knows he shouldn’t feel this unbothered while thinking about it. It wasn’t his fault that her father wanted to keep it a secret that he was training by Archie’s side the last few weeks and even more that he became sick in the first place.

But those were clearly not the things his girlfriend wanted to hear, when she came rushing to his room after school, confront him about this whole situation.

“You messed up Archie!”

Her voice echoes through his mind, the angry words crossing the absolute silence ins this room.

He should call her.

He should tell her how sorry he is.

But the truth is, he doesn’t want to apologize.

As her boyfriend, he should be on her side. He should feel bad about all this.

But the only thing Archie feels, is confusion.

_Shouldn’t I care more? Shouldn’t I feel bad about this? Shouldn’t I feel more at all?_

His thoughts are interrupted by the sudden noise of the backdoor being opened.

_He should probably hope that it’s Veronica._

But the unspoken truth is, that he is more than happy to see Betty Cooper walking in the room, silently closing the garage door behind her.

“Hey Arch…”, she begins, slowly walking towards him. “I’m sorry I’m late, I had some trouble at home and…”.

“It’s okay”. He interrupts her with a small smile, standing up on his feed as she stops at the other side of the small stage, he’d built over the last few weeks to practice his singing skills like a real artist. “Actually, you’re even the first to be here”.

It’s the first time that she really looks at him today, her blue eyes meeting his dark ones.

 _She looks sad_ , he thinks. And he doesn’t know how, but he just knows what this “problem” she just spoke of actually is… or who exactly it was, that made her look like she wants to cry and scream at the same time.

She looks surprised at his words, looking around like she is searching for something. “What about Veronica? Isn’t she coming?”

“No”. He hates himself for the fact, that suddenly he doesn’t even care about the missing girl anymore. He just wants to know what brought this broken look on Bettys face.

There is a beat of silence between them, as they stand there and just stare at each other.

“…you wanna talk about it?” He breaks the silence and watches the small smile on his best friends face.

“No… not really”. She shakes her head, sounding more defeated that she actually wanted to admit.

“Do _you_ want to talk about it?”

Her question hits him unprepared and for a moment he looks kind of lost.

“About what?”

“About Veronica”, she simply answers. “Archie, you should probably know that after all these years I can read your emotions just like you can read mine… I know that this look on your face screams _girlfriend trouble_ at me”.

Her raised eyebrows and that look on her face brings a real laugh out of him and he can feel the tension inside him fall off his shoulders.

“I’m really glad you’re here”. That’s all he says to that and she understands in an instant. One of the million things he loves about Betty is that she always knows when he wants to speak and when he doesn’t.

“I’m glad I’m here, too”, she simply answers, and he tries to ignore the joy inside him as a smile breaks over her face and wipes the sadness in her eyes away.

“Do you want to start rehearsing? Or should I just leave… because I don’t even know if rehearsing makes any sense if it’s just you and me and…”.

“Stay”. He doesn’t even care that his words sound pleading and weak. He simply doesn’t want her to leave and it slowly dawns to him that she is the only one he really needs at this rehearsal.

She looks in his eyes again, meeting his soft gaze with an understanding only they could have for each other.

The next few minutes are easily the funniest of his whole day… hell even of the last few weeks.

He tries to teach Betty how to play the bass and she fails miserably, shaking her head in disbelief from time to time, laughing about his efforts to make the impossible possible.

After and hour of crooked tones, quiet curses and laughing he finally admits: “Alright, you know what? How about you just sing with me? We could make a duet out of it”.

Saying yes had never felt easier for Betty.

As the night breaks over them and the windows turn dark, they stand side by side on this old, little stage as Betty listens to the guitar sounds in this summer afternoon and Archie starts to sing like he never did anything else in his life.

**“When the earth was still flat,**

**And the clouds made of fire,**

**And mountains stretched up to the sky,**

**Sometimes higher,**

**Folks roamed the earth**

**Like big rolling kegs.**

**They had two sets of arms.**

**They had two sets of legs.**

**They had two faces peering**

**Out of one giant head**

**So they could watch all around them…”.**

Archies voice is soft and warm and Betty catches herself, starring with pure admiration at the boy beside her. It’s not like she didn’t knew he was this good, she always knew that Archie would be a good artist if he tried.

But standing here in this old garage, watching her best friend sing his heart out, takes her back to a much simpler time. A time when everything seemed so easy.

**“As they talked; while they read.**

**And they never knew nothing of love.**

**It was before the origin of love.**

**The origin of love”.**

As Betty looks at Archie the vision in front of her seems to fade and she isn’t looking at the here and know. She sees herself… a much younger version of herself, laying on the floor in Archie’s bedroom. And he is there, right beside her, catching her small hand in his own, his childish laugh crossing through her mind.

**“And there were three sexes then,**

**One that looked like two men**

**Glued up back to back,**

**Called the children of the sun.**

**And similar in shape and girth**

**Were the children of the earth.”**

Archie is smiling at the blonde girl beside him, watching her as she starts to sing.

**“They looked like two girls**

**Rolled up in one.**

**And the children of the moon**

**Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.**

**They were part sun, part earth**

**Part daughter, part son.**

**The origin of love”.**

Maybe it’s the way her ocean blue eyes find his while her soft voice fills the room. Maybe it’s the way the stage lights shine onto her blonde hair, making it glow like pure gold.

Or maybe it’s the smile on her lips and the warm feeling he gets while watching her, that takes him back in time.

He remembers how he once kissed the girl with the angel voice.

How he fell on his knees in second grade, proposing to Betty Cooper in her front yard.

Remembers the feeling of getting rejected and the tiring feeling having to wait several years to finally turn 18, so he can propose again… and she can say yes like she had promised.

**“To remind us of the price we pay.**

**And Osiris and the gods of the Nile**

**Gathered up a big storm**

**To blow a hurricane,**

**To scatter us away,**

**In a flood of wind and rain,**

**And a sea of tidal waves,**

**To wash us all away,**

**And if we don't behave**

**They'll cut us down again**

**And we'll be hopping round on one foot**

**And looking through one eye.”**

Archie is so lost in his mind that he misses the second part he has to sing. It’s Betty who brings him back to the present, walking towards him while singing his part, a smile on her lips.

He sings with her, tries to fight the joy inside his chest.

**“Last time I saw you**

**We had just split in two.**

**You were looking at me.**

**I was looking at you.”**

Archie’s heart drops as the image of a night crosses his mind, that he never wanted to think about again. Prom night. His dance with Betty. And the hurtful memory of the broken look on her face, as he told her that he isn’t good enough for her. That he can’t give her the answer she wants.

**“You had a way so familiar,**

**But I could not recognize,**

**Cause you had blood on your face;**

**I had blood in my eyes.**

**But I could swear by your expression**

**That the pain down in your soul**

**Was the same as the one down in mine.”**

Betty is now standing right in front of him and he turns to her while singing, getting lost the second he looks in her eyes.

She isn’t the same that she used to be. She is so much stronger, so intense and beautiful at once that he nearly can’t concentrate on the song lyrics he has to sing. She isn’t the perfect girl he thought she was… maybe she never even was. She makes mistakes, she fails but she always gets up again. She can be determining when it get’s to school stuff, she can get mad about little things, but never really means it in the end. She is so beautiful, inside an out. She laughs at your jokes even though they aren’t even funny. She teaches you something until you can do it on your own. She is the most honest person he knows. She is funny, even when she doesn’t want to be. She is kind to people that don’t even deserve it. She has a beautiful soul and the most natural smile. But above all else – she is his best friend.

And if he learned one thing in the last years, then it’s that Betty Cooper doesn’t need his protection. She is the perfect girl, but not in the way he used to think.

**“That's the pain,**

**Cuts a straight line**

**Down through the heart;**

**We called it love.**

**So we wrapped our arms around each other,**

**Trying to shove ourselves back together.**

**We were making love,**

**Making love.”**

It feels like Archie’s heart is jumping out of his chest while he realized that he made a lot of mistakes in the last few years… but the biggest one was rejecting Betty in the night she showed him her heart and he threw it away without a second thought. It was stupid to think that she would wait for him… and he never expected that from her. But he never thought that she would find love so soon after that. It may be selfish and dumb and heartless… but a little part of him always thought that one day, they would be together. Someday, when they would be older and wiser. Looking back at the time when Betty was by his side all day, he realizes how much he missed this… how much he missed _her_.

**“It was a cold dark evening,**

**Such a long time ago,**

**When by the mighty hand of Jove…”.**

Betty and Archie are standing face to face and he isn’t even singing in his microphone anymore.

He keeps playing the melody on the guitar hanging on his chest, breathing the words like a silent pray while he watches the girl in front of him with such an awe that he almost forgets to breathe.

Betty isn’t smiling anymore but keeps singing the words like it’s her only purpose in life. She left her microphone on the other side of the stage, doesn’t even recognize how silent the room became within an few minutes.

**“It was the sad story**

**How we became**

**Lonely two-legged creatures,**

**It's the story of**

**The origin of love.”**

She keeps singing, soft words leaving her mouth, even as Archie stops playing the guitar. She sings acapella as he reaches up and slowly puts the guitar over his head, laying it to the ground without ever breaking eye contact with Betty.

She can feel the tension in her whole body, can hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She is scared that when she moves, when she dares to stop singing, the spell of this rare moment will disappear. It’s been years since she last felt what she feels now in this moment and somehow, she never wants it to stop.

She remembers their last kiss in the music room, when they tried to pretend to be together. She knows this was all a game, just a lie to trick the others. And she didn’t feel anything while doing it… because if she did… well, wouldn’t that make her a horrible person?

Maybe that’s why she built the wall around herself, after that prom night some years ago. Maybe getting hurt by Archie was something that she could never recover from. Maybe… maybe she was too scared to face these feelings, so she kept them buried all this time.

And hell, she didn’t plan on letting them come to the surface by fake dating her best friend. But that’s the problem with emotions… you can ignore them all you want… but they won’t go away just because you want them to.

Betty watches as Archie leaves the guitar on the stage ground and stands up again, his brown eyes watching her the entire time.

And in the last sentence, the last line of the song, he joins her again, his warm voice filling the room.

**“That's the origin of love.”**

Their voices linger in the air, the echo of a moment that seems to be forbidden is hanging in the room.

“ _Arch_ …”. She doesn’t even know what to say or what to do.

She just knows that they are standing way to close for friends but the second she wants to turn away she knows that doing the right thing shouldn’t be this hard.

“Archie…”, she repeats with a whisper, tells him with the look in her eyes what exactly she wants to say.

_We shouldn’t be doing this. We are too close._

“I know”. His voice is low and the second he reaches out for her and his fingers linger over her cheek, she knows that stopping this would be the hardest thing on earth.

Archie’s finger stroke over her flushed cheeks, reaching down to her neck while his head loses the long-fought battle against his heart. “I know, Betty…”.

But I’m here for you. I’m here with you.

So he doesn’t think anymore cause he _knows_ this is wrong and he _knows_ there are rules and he _damn knows_ that this will bring him to hell someday but god he can’t just stand here any longer, watching this beautiful girl with the bright, blue eyes, the flushed cheeks and golden hair without going crazy.

Maybe he knew it since they kissed in the music room.

Maybe he knew it since she started dating Jughead and it nearly killed him.

Maybe he knew it since the day he met her at the age of 5, smiling at her from his window.

Maybe he knew all along that he is crazy for this girl and there is nothing that he can do about it.

So, he places his fingers under her chin, pulling her towards him. They move so light and uncomplicated as if they did this their entire life’s. He closes his eyes, doesn’t really know what he expects or hopes for, but as soon as their lips meet in the middle, he knows this was the right thing to do.

She tastes like cherry’s and a part of him hates himself for remembering that she always tasted like that. Even back in second grade when she used to wear this bright pink lip-gloss… even back then she tasted this sweet.

For a second they stay like this. It’s the perfect repeat of their kiss in the night when they hunted the black hood – short but sweet.

The part again and he slowly opens his eyes, breathing the same air that she does. Betty has her eyes closed and a fear rises in him that – _fuck_ , maybe this was a dumb mistake and maybe he will really go to hell for this.

But then she opens her eyes, watches him with so much emotion in her gaze that his heart nearly stops beating for a moment. Then her lips turn into a smile and he knows that somehow, even though this is wrong… it still is the right thing to do.

He doesn’t care that none of this makes any sense.

He just smiles and kissed her again, feeling like he can finally breath again. He didn’t even know that he was holding his breath… but it feels like Betty is his oxygen and somehow, he was holding his breath since forever.

Betty smiles against his lips and her hands are reaching for him, one pressed against his chest, the other finding her way to his hair, burring her fingers inside it.

His fingers glide from her face to the back of her head, while his other arm reaches around her, pilling her up to him. She stands on her toes now, clinging to him like a drowning woman to a swim west.

He deepens the kiss, tasting her like he never did before, the smell of her vanilla hair shampoo dazing his mind. He feels like giving up a fight the he fought way to long and as he moans defeated into the kiss, he can feel the goosebumps appearing all over her body and smiles against her lips.

There was a time where he never thought about Betty in a romantic way. There were other women in his life that filled that place.

Thinking back about that time makes him realize how blind he was.

_He loves Betty_. He always did.

 _He needs Betty_. Cause that is a fact.

 _He wants Betty_. That is new. But it’s so clear to him like the night sky.

He realizes that, when she deepens the kiss even more, pressing her body against his, leaving no air between them.

That’s when he realizes that she might want him too. That maybe, she needs this just as much as he does.

He didn’t realize how long they were standing there, clinging to each other like their life’s depended on it.

But at some point, the need for air is inevitable and they let go of each other, both breathing heavy and fast.

He can’t take his eyes of her face. Her eyes are still closed, and he has never seen her cheeks this pink. Her lips look redder than they ever did before and her ponytail is loosened up, a few strands of hair are falling in front of her face.

It’s hilarious how out of breath he feels, and he could laugh at the current situation. It’s not like Archie can’t control himself. But somehow Betty Cooper made him break all the rules between them in just 5 minutes.

He reaches out and gently brushes the hair out of her face. Slowly she opens her eyes, dark pupils glancing up at him.

They don’t even need to speak. He knows exactly what she is thinking, as her eyes circle over his face and she looks down at the floor, biting her lip in frustration.

“Betty…”, he begins slowly, tasting her name on his lips like it’s a forbidden spell.

She looks back up at him and all the words in his head disappear while she looks in his eyes.

“Yeah?” Her voice is raspy and _god_ , if he could have one free wish it would be getting to kiss this girl all day.

“I…”. The words are stuck in his throat. “I… don’t know what to say”, he finally admits.

A small smile is appearing on her lips. “Me either”.

Silence follows their words and it feels like the last few minutes are catching up to them.

_Oh god._

_What have we done?_

“Maybe I should go”. Her voice is so much softer than usual.

He just stands her while she turns her back on him, grabbing her bag at the other side of the stage.

_Please stay._

He can’t get a word out while she walks to the door. Maybe it’s the fact that he slowly realizes what they just did.

But he just _can’t_ let her go like this.

“Betty!”, he calls after her as she opens the door. The strands of hair around her face are flying in the air as she turns around to him, fingers clinging at the doorknob.

His eyes wander over her face, following the way his lips just went.

She stands there, looking like an angel and suddenly she seems like something he _still_ isn’t good enough for.

“I don’t regret it”, he admits. He knows that she might yell at him for this, that she would tell him how wrong this was and how much they could hurt people with this.

But there is not one sign of anger on her face.

For am moment she looks like she is about to cry, but her voice is strong but also soft as she answers: “I don’t regret it either, Arch”.

And with that she walks out the room, closing the door behind her, leaving him alone and more confused than he ever felt in his entire life.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you guys liked this… I was a little bit conflicted about this story, cause… well, this is based on spoilers and I don't know if writing about this is the right thing to do...
> 
> My question to you guys is, if you would like to read the rest of the episode as well?  
> I mean we have a window scene to come and another song… if someone wants to read this as well, I would love to write it! :) 
> 
> Hope you have a nice day & most importantly - STAY HEALTHY!! xoxo


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